


Better Lost than Found

by frangipani



Series: Boundaries [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rope Bondage, Shibari, a lot more vanilla than it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 15:23:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6429937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani/pseuds/frangipani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mara Jade's curiosity hadn't been entirely on academic matters, it was set on <i>him</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Lost than Found

Standing in front of Mara Jade’s door, Luke Skywalker wondered if this was such a good idea. 

Beside him, Mara must have felt his misgivings because she spared him a mildly reproachful look as she input the codes to open the door. “You can back out, you know.”

It had started out as a purely academic discussion on meditation during one of their daily training sessions. They’d gone through one of the trickier lightsaber sequences and Luke had taken her through their usual meditation routine after. Mara had never been a fan of meditation to begin with and needed prodding. He’d reminded her that the basic tenet of using the Force was to let go of one’s bearings to find the calm. She hadn’t disagreed, but she’d noted that both dispensing with the body and anchoring oneself to it had the same effect.

“Anchoring oneself?” he’d echoed.

“Pain.” Mara’s lip had twisted at the memory. “When I heard the Emperor’s voice...after, I found the easiest way to shut it up was to go towards the nearest blunt object.”

He’d tilted his head. “I’m not sure that’s the same thing…”

“No, let me finish. What I’m trying to say is that in this specific case pain short-circuited Force influence, centered me in my body. That kind of centering could bring some openness to the Force, I bet. Similar to meditation, but from the other side.”

“Seems beside the point when meditation is much simpler and doesn’t need a blunt object.”

She had stopped to consider, ignoring the offhand comment. “It doesn’t just have to be pain,” she’d mused. “Any moment where the body receives stimuli crossing over a certain threshold.”

His brow had furrowed. He’d been trying to think if the of the old texts he’d read mentioned anything like it. “You mean pleasure too?”

Mara had also looked like she was trying to puzzle it out. “It can’t be uncontrolled. Then you forfeit the mental state.”

Luke had shaken his head, coming up empty. “Meditation is easier.”

“Probably,” she’d conceded somewhat reluctantly.

“You’re curious.”

She turned gaze on him. “Aren’t you?”

Mara might be much less experienced than he was with the Force, but she had uncommonly good instincts. Still...“I don’t think I’ve come across any text discussing that.”

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“Why are you so curious?”

She’d shrugged. 

“Ease with meditation is just a question of discipline.”

Her eyes narrowed a little at that. “I want to test it out.”

“What?”

“Heightened sensory stimuli and openness to the Force.”

Luke had shaken his head. “If meditation gives you prob--”

“Not on me. On you.”

Her reply had caught him so off guard he stayed quiet for a few beats. 

“If you don’t want to, it’s fine. _I_ don’t have the proper discipline,” she flashed him a testy look. “To carry it through.” 

He could sense something else from Mara. Not something he could easily pin down. 

He’d gone out on a limb and asked, “What do you have in mind?”

And here they were in front of her quarters a week later after ironing out the generalities, Mara looking at him with a look of almost clinical interest. Her shielding, always pretty good, had gotten even better since they’d started training regularly. Sometimes he couldn’t read her at all.

But he knew her well enough to hazard a guess. “I don’t think you’re comfortable with this.”

She barked out a laugh and gestured him in. “You’re so sure it’s me?” Luke heard her say behind him. The tension briefly died down and she continued with her usual frankness, “But, sure, a little discomfort is part of it.”

He turned back to her. Mara was inputting the code for locking. “The intimacy bit.”

That had been foremost on his mind and something they’d gone back and forth on. He trusted Mara, had done so even when she’d held the blaster against his head, threats on her lips, and her mind...her mind recoiling like some wounded creature, knowing that all the King’s men, not his blood on the dirt, would bring back any of what she’d had. This was nothing next to that. 

This was an _experiment_.

She coughed a little, an awkward sound coming from her mostly because he was used to it as a delay tactic. Unlike her. “We have something else to clear up.” They’d come to the kitchen area of her quarters and she gestured for him to sit down.

He did, mostly for her sake. 

“You need to decide beforehand sex or no sex.”

He blinked at her. Of course, they’d broached that too, if vaguely. He felt his face grow hot. “You’re letting me decide?”

Mara looked at him as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe. It dampened his embarrassment somewhat to be falling into the familiar terrain of their old patterns. But then she said, “You’re going to be subjecting yourself to it. You get to make that call.”

Luke shrugged. He hadn’t expected to and it galled him a little. “You can--”

Mara shook her head. When she spoke, she did so very slowly, emphatically, “Your. Call.”

“Okay,” he said lightly. “But can’t we play it by ear?”

He hadn’t seen that expression on her face in a while. He had seen it almost nonstop in Myrkr though, and remembered it well. Usually it was accompanied by her shooting down whatever suggestion he’d made in a way that put his intelligence and maybe his mental sanity into question along with it.

“Not how it works,” she finally answered, oddly subdued. 

“Alright,” he conceded. He mulled it over a bit, trying not to get too bogged down with the weirdness of the situation. Regardless of Mara’s ribbing over his less than cosmopolitan background, he didn’t think of himself particularly green. Sharing someone’s bed in the name of academic inquiry was new, though, and he liked Mara, for all her sharp edges and disdain for sentimentality. Liked her a lot, and knew her well enough that whatever she put on the table, she meant, and yet... 

“You’re good either way? Really? It’s not too much? Too intimate?”

Mara shrugged. “It would be a half measure otherwise, no?"

He stared at her. She wasn't unreadable then, just curious, and...concerned.

And then she was back to her deflections. "Just don’t write me love letters after.”

He grinned at her. “I’ll try to restrain myself.”

“That’s a yes?”

He nodded. “That’s a yes.”

“Also, could you avoid using the Force? We’re checking after, during ruins the whole thing.”

“I wouldn’t--”

She pointed to the doorway at the corner with her usual brusqueness. “Room’s that way. Want water before we start?”

He shook his head, slid off the chair and went over. Her room was tidy to the point of looking barely lived in. The bed was immaculately made, there was a desk with a couple of data cards off to the side, but other than that, no personal effects. He’d known Mara for two years now, one where she’d swore she wanted him dead, and one where they’d become friends, close enough that he'd wondered why she never talked about her life outside her work-- especially given how much he found himself telling her about his own, the complex web of attachments and obligations to family and friends. She'd listened, but never responded in kind. When he'd asked directly she had scoffed and said she had colleagues, not friends, and she liked it that way. He’d thought it a deflection, a way of keeping her life outside her liaison work and training under wraps. It bothered him a little she would still be that private around him, but everything with Mara was hard won.

Looking about the room, he wondered if it wasn’t that there might not _be_ much else after Karrde and his people, her found family of sorts, had raised ship. He’d asked twice why she had not gone with them, she could do a lot of her liaison work remotely, after all. The first time she’d fed him a line about she and Karrde’s “diverging interests,” but the second she’d said she wanted to earn the lightsaber that he’d gifted her. It hadn’t occurred to him what that meant for someone like her, cautious to the point of suspicion. He saw it now in the impersonal state of the room, the silence that hung in the air. He could imagine her sitting at her desk, datapad on hand, one night indistinguishable from the next. He knew she prized her self-sufficiency above all, but that came at a cost. How could she bear it?

If his scrutiny bothered her, Mara didn’t comment on it, or perhaps she was too busy looking for something. He heard her shuffling around off to the side behind him. 

“Lights. Dim setting,” she said once she was done, and he turned to her, pushing away his previous train of thought. The low light set shadows playing about her face. She had coiled rope in her hands. A lot of it.

“Take off your clothes.”

They had talked about this, but the reality of it was different here, now, in the private space of her room. And while he was been able to approach their experiment with adequate distance, before her scrutiny and the cadence of her voice, smooth like shimmersilk, he suddenly felt very present.

He smiled over the nervous clench of his stomach. They’d decided to meet outside of the NR chamber of commerce buildings which housed her office and he had decided against Jedi robes for discretion. He pulled the nondescript shirt over his head. He did the pants and boots next and then his underwear, feeling awkward and fumbling under her shadowy gaze. 

“Get on the bed.”

He went over and sat on the edge.

“No.” She came over to the bed and raised herself on her knees. “All of you on the bed.” She climbed up behind him when he scooted towards the wall. “Hands behind your back.”

She arranged his arms herself, left arm above right, parallel to each other. He felt the slide of the rope as she looped it several inches from his wrist. It didn’t feel like a usual knot, there was space to move them once she was done, but then she was still working with the running ends. She dragged the rope up and over just below his shoulder, and continued dragging it across his chest. He found himself hyper aware, not just of where the rope dug into his shoulder, but the firm grip of her hand a few inches above it as anchor, the slide of her fingers atop his skin as she extended the rope, the brush of her forearm by his cheek, and the whisper of her breath by his temple.

It was...interesting. The ease spoke of practice -- and he abruptly shut the train of thought down.

Mara did another pass, pressing down on the rope, the rope, in turn, pricking his skin. He looked down, and there was a symmetry there, four parallel bands about a hand’s width below his collarbone. He felt her fingers pull the rope somewhere near the looped part by his shoulder, maybe tucked it under. She shifted a little, put a heavy hand by the curve of his neck and pulled until he felt the bite of the rope against his skin as she set the tension. She tucked the rope up then brought it down, and then back up. He found it harder and harder to keep track. Soon there was just the graze of the rope against his arm and the nimble motions of Mara’s hands.

“Everything okay? Pins and needles anywhere?” Mara’s index finger hooked between his bicep and each of the loops checking for slack, shifting the binding a bit. 

He shook his head. "It's fine."

She repeated the check again, finger rolling front to back around his bicep, her hair brushing his cheek as she did. Satisfied, she went back to the knot at the back. The rope came out again around his arm, three finger widths under the previous band. He gave up trying to work out her movements and let himself fall into the push and pull of her hands, the press and slide of her fingers, the clasp of the rope. 

“This looks more aesthetic than functional,” he commented casually, eyes falling on the second set of four bands about mid-way across his ribs. 

“It is.”

He mulled over the admission for a moment before giving up. Suddenly, Mara scooted forward so she was facing him. 

Her expression was schooled, same hard edges in place, but her eyes had a different intensity to them, and there were splashes of bright color on her face, like she’d been running, or doing lightsaber drills. Or aroused. The thought went straight down to his cock before he knew it and wrested the air from his lungs. 

Mara was talking so he forced his attention back to her, trying not to think that he was very naked and hard. What was it she’d said? Heightened--

“Hey, hey.” She was patting his cheek lightly and he refocused. She was smiling at him, one of those rare real smiles that took her from good-looking to stunning. “I’m going to work on this leg next.” 

Her hand dropped to his left ankle and an errant tingle spread through him as she looped the rope around it. She looked over at him, running ends of the rope in her left hand and licked her lips. “Bend.” She patted his knee and he folded it up, mind going hazy. He was still turned on, still vaguely embarrassed that it was so plain to see, and yet there was something pleasant about Mara’s focus. Pleasant enough that he could just let himself float on it. 

“Okay,” she leaned over him, flat of her hand against the front of his ankle. “I’m going to push your leg back far as it can go.” He didn’t quite expect her to push that hard, and slipped back. Without the leverage from his arms, he landed with an “oof!” on the mattress.

Mara appeared above him, a sheepish expression on her face. “Sorry, miscalculated.”

She brought her hands around his shoulders, about to help him up, then stopped. “Actually, stay there.” 

He made a faint sound of protest. He was curious about what she was doing, after all. Next thing he knew, Mara’s back was towards him and her weight was on him as she straddled his waist, fabric of her pants scratchy on his skin. He couldn’t see her or what she was doing, but felt the press of her torso against his bent thigh as she leaned and took hold of the ankle and pulled it towards her. The stretch of the muscle as she pulled his heel back towards the back of his thigh drew a slight grunt from him. The stretch continued to be uncomfortable for a few moments until his body eased into it.

Then she began to work the rope, looping high up on his thigh, just too close, and he couldn’t help neither the gasp nor the the shift of his hips. Mara stopped.

“I did miscalculate,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe I do owe you something up front.”

He did see her reach between his legs, and her hand close around his cock, thumb sliding across the wetness at the tip. He didn’t know if he could have prevented himself from thrusting up. The bindings bit into his arms as his muscles tensed, and it was just the right amount of contrast, tearing a strangled moan from him. Mara released him and turned to meet his eyes, something of a question in them. Tentatively, she reached towards him, fingers skimming his cheek, his jaw line. Her index and middle finger brushed his lower lip. He leaned forward slightly and closed his mouth over them, eyes on her face. Even from where he lay he heard the hitch in her breath, saw her eyes unfocus a bit. She slid the fingers out slowly.

“We'll get to that, I--,” she closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “I’m just going to finish here first.”

She slid off him, crouched by his bent knee, the one with the cuff around the ankle, running ends trailing, and went back to the rope work. This time he managed to simply hiss when the rope looped it’s torturous path high up his thigh. His concentration was in tatters, so he didn’t even make the attempt to sort out the motions of her fingers and the rope apart from its winding, the tight squeeze of his calf against his thigh, the stretch of his heel jammed against the back of his thigh. It was all _good_ in ways he couldn’t parse.

An endless moment later, Mara sat back and her eyes scanned up her work on the leg. He followed her gaze, registering not just the loops that bound his calf to his thigh, but the intricate knotting that ran down the crease where the leg was bent. His eyes darted to Mara in surprise. Of course he knew she was competent in all areas she set her mind to, but there was a sort of artistry there, an inclination he’d never suspected she had. Mara ducked her head, almost but not quite hiding a smile at being found out. The discovery of that smile alone felt worth the awkward vulnerability of being splayed like this on her bed, his desire for her laid bare.

She moved away, slid off the bed, and he followed her with his eyes as she rummaged in her drawers for something else. Finally, she pulled out some sort of fabric and showed it to him.

A black scarf.

He grimaced. “Really?” 

“Remove stimuli from one sense, increase sensitivity to another.” She smiled and straddled his waist again, but this time she was facing him, the red of her hair bright even in the dim lights. Her hands fell atop the lines of rope looping around his chest. The fingers of her right hand played with the bands for a second, hooking and unhooking like a nervous tic. Again, her expression became inquisitive, “How is it?”

He thought there was a tendril of her hair that he would have wanted to push away from her face. That he would have wanted to kiss all the sharp edges from her until only that hidden smile remained. That he would have wanted to fill out all of her empty spaces, so that she’d never feel lonely again.

But right now was too soon, too fast, too much, for all that, so he just said, a bit hoarsely, “Good.”

And she was leaning over to tie the scarf gently around his head, sliding it down over his eyes. Her weight shifted, she was sliding off him, but a rustle of clothing later, she was back, and from the erotic slide of her naked leg against his unbound one, she’d discarded her pants. Her underwear was there though, unfortunately, although once she settled between his legs, his cock trapped between them, it didn’t seem too tragic. And when she started a slow, maddening rock of her hips, then it didn’t seem tragic at all.

What _did_ border on unbearable was that he couldn’t touch her. The more he wanted, the harder the rope dug into his arms, reminding him of the utter futility of it all.

Mara’s fingers were at his temples. She shifted and he felt her weight on him, the kiss of her bare skin as she lay on his chest. “Shhh,” she soothed by his ear, her breath a caress in itself.

Mara had sat up again, and he was suddenly very aware of just how drenched the thin fabric between their bodies was and groaned. Mara’s rhythm had increased, he felt it not only in the roll of her hips, but in the brace of her hands against his chest as she leaned forward. He could see her in his mind’s eye, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, and the red gold of her hair falling over her face. He wished he could see her come. If he couldn’t touch her, couldn't see her, then feeling her go still, then fall pliant and sated on him would be the next best thing.

But she stopped, body sliding forward until she was straddling his waist.

He was not proud at all of the whine that escaped from him. Without being able to see, all he had to go on were fragments, her hair, feathery and a bit ticklish against his jaw, her breath gone fast and shallow against his neck. He all out gasped when her tongue traced a hot line up over his Adam’s apple, instinctively pulling against the rope, free leg bending, heel digging into the mattress. And she was gone, back to just her weight at his waist.

His world narrowed down to two things: her touch and the anticipation of it. Just when he didn’t think he could take her absence, her mouth fell back on him, finding a spot just below his collarbone, the side of his neck, his shoulder, sucking bruises, scraping her teeth onto his skin, making his back arch bowstring taut. The bindings --not just the ones around his arms, but those around his left leg-- offered bruising resistance, his free leg only a reminder of the constriction. He couldn’t get air into his lungs fast enough. 

Her lips were just under the second set of bindings, nuzzling the skin just above his belly button, a soft caress on his sensitized skin. Mara lingered long enough that he relaxed slightly and felt her hands travel up and down his sides, palms spread. It should be nothing, but the fullness of her touch made him grit his teeth and twist a bit, seeking more. Her nail scratched bluntly down his nipple, and it felt like an electric charge across sensitized nerve endings, leaving him to hiss and jerk against the restraints. On and on it went in a circuit of pleasure and torment. He was burning up from the inside out, all of it centered on the implacable bulge of his cock, where he was past hard to throbbing, leaking the beginnings of a mess already cooling on the inside of his thigh.

Mara withdrew. He couldn’t figure out for how long, but his heart was still jackhammering away in his chest. Long enough for anticipation to have gathered as a heavy caress all it’s own. Long enough that if she touched him again, he might just come apart.

“You’re too close.” Her voice broke through the haze, soft, and yet, razor sharp. “And it’s not time. Do you want to handle it or should I?”

Difficult to put thoughts into words. He tried, managed to get as far as “You.” It came out as a cracked half-whispered sound. He licked his lips, ready to try again, but she was already shifting again, her hand warm against his cheek. 

“Okay,” she whispered and slid off him. He felt her grasp the bound leg and pull it to lie flat on the side. And the next was too fast -- her hand was at the crease of his thigh, and it would set him off on another rush, but she found the pressure point and it only _hurt_. Simple pain. Clean.

His head cleared. 

“Better?”

He focused on his breathing for a bit. “Yeah.”

One of Mara’s fingers slid under the loop highest on his thigh, a gesture that could be confused for her checking the tension of the rope. “Everything okay?”

He nodded and her hand fell away. By the way her other hand stroked along his unbound thigh and the fall of her hair over his abdomen, he had some idea of where she was going next. But that in no way prepared him for the feeling of her mouth on his inner thigh, the brush of her tongue.

He drew in a sharp breath, hips hitching, a shudder breaking through him. Her fist closed around his cock, wet mouth off to the side, and he choked out a curse, hips thrusting into her hand, air stalling in his throat, color breaking across the black of the blindfold. Just like that, he was back down in a sea of couldn’ts, couldn’t see her, couldn’t touch her, couldn’t loosen cramped muscles. What he could do was push his hips into her hand and lose himself in the spark, instant by instant. Mara let him do it once, twice, then again, before letting go, leaving him touch starved and straining against the rope, body humming with pent up tension, a moan dying on his lips. 

He gulped for air while Mara’s finger hooked and unhooked on one of the loops on his leg. He anchored himself on the touch, oddly soothing to his frayed nerves. Hook, unhook. Hook, unhook. He felt himself coming back from the threshold of mindlessness bit by bit, back to where the ache of frustration was manageable.

Mara’s hand closed around him again, and she stroked deliberately, achingly slow, but even, drawing out a low grunt from him as she coaxed him right out of manageable, back to breathless, and back to the roar of his blood in his ears, the rough drag of the rope against his skin. He bit his lip, daring to hope that now might be time, that she might grant him release. He shut his eyes tight behind the blindfold, feeling his climax _there_ just barely out of reach. Mara stopped, no warning, no let down, just cruel absence.

He whimpered a little, hips still working trying to gain back some of the friction, but Mara’s hand was gone. It played aimlessly between his legs, cupping him, skidding down his thigh, and he writhed, moaned out her name because all of it was too much and not nearly enough at the same time. Her hand slid up his hip and he felt her mouth just under his navel, tongue tracing a scorching path down that made his abdominal muscles tighten. Her name fell from his lips again, this time in a keen that he barely recognized as his own voice.

Mara finally wrapped her hand around him, went faster this time until he was trembling, whole body knotting with tension, back arched, toes curled, straining against the bindings, straining against Mara’s hand, reaching for the climax just a hair’s breadth away. Then she abruptly squeezed the base of his cock, his release receded, leaving him hollowed out and vibrating like a sticking vector plate. 

Over the thundering of his pulse, over the agony, he heard her say. “Luke, breathe.” 

It was all he could do to do just that.

Mara’s palm was splayed along his right side, while she brushed her lips over his ribs at his left. She was partially on top of him and he rocked his hips against the resistance of her skin. It wasn't enough at all, and his oversensitized skin sparked wherever she touched. She was suddenly gone and he felt crazed and desperate, trapped in a circuit of pained want.

“Breathe.”

But that’s not it, that’s not what he wants, not what he needs, dimly he thought he might be saying this out loud, moaning it incoherently while he strained towards her, that he wants, that he’ll beg if she wants him to, anything, just, just-- 

She slid up his body, movement suddenly graceless, and swallowed his moan. Her mouth on his was as bruising as unexpected. She tasted like bitter and earth, like him, and her kiss felt like a claim under duress. Like her hand was forced, like it had been burning in her, just as it burned on him now, like a brand. 

The kiss went soft just before she pulled away, becoming the lightest touch of her lips to which he whispered, “Please.”

Mara’s hand was just barely on his cheek, and maybe it was that he wasn’t in his right mind, but he thought it might have been trembling. It was sure and solid when it wrapped around his cock again. He arched into it -- beside himself with relief -- and into the wet heat of her mouth. It’s too much, it’s just right, and he meant to breathe, but ended up making disjointed, increasingly desperate pleas for her not to stop, he needs, not to ever stop, he wants, please, latching onto her name in between like a mantra. 

She adjusted to the buck of his hips, let him set the tempo, until he felt the snap and give of tension, muscles seizing, and spilled himself into her mouth, dragged under a shimmering wave of pleasure so sharp it edged on pain. It seemed to go on and on, leaving him lightheaded and utterly spent when it receded, a slight shake in his limbs still. 

Mara released him, shifted, and placed a hand on his unbound leg, waiting. When his breathing was a bit more even, she moved closer. Her hand was against his cheek again and he leaned into it with a sigh. In the back of his mind, he registered his cheek was wet, but was too drained to give it any thought.

She pulled her hand back slowly and shifted again. Her fingers thread through the rope at his leg, deftly weaving through the bands and pulling slightly, until the ropes went slack, prompting a sigh from him. Once the ropes fell, Mara slid her hand up the back of his calf, massaging the cramped muscle. Pain blossomed when she slowly pulled his leg forward, drawing a small groan from him. Mara continued applying pressure up the leg here and there, until he could flex it with just a bit of soreness. 

She scooted back and slid an arm around his shoulder to help him up. His limbs were heavy and uncooperative, and he couldn’t help but make a small sound in protest.

“You can lie down after,” Mara murmured. “I need to undo the rope.” Again, her hands pulled slightly, unwind, and the tension around his shoulder released. Like she did with his leg, she worked her fingers, the heel of her palm into the muscles of his arms, his shoulder, his upper back, until he barely keep upright. No longer had she finished than he slid down the bed until he was lying on his side, head pillowed on her lap, a bit chilly, but reluctant to move any more that strictly necessary.

It occurred to him that this might not be okay now, but she didn’t say anything, just gently pulled the blindfold off. The room was dim, but it still took his eyes a bit to adjust -- not that it mattered, because all he wanted to look at was her, but that would entail more movement. 

Her hands stroked the damp hair on his forehead and Luke knew now why she didn’t leave with Karrde. Well, _knew_ , might be too strong a word. He might still punch drunk, and not completely rational, but his feelings had served him well on more than one occasion. And his feelings told him that Mara Jade's curiosity hadn't been entirely on academic matters, it was set on _him_. Anything else, he had no idea, starting on whether she’d even managed to work that out herself, or what it meant. He'd puzzle that out later when higher cognitive function returned.

Her voice broke through his thoughts. “I’m going to get you some water.”

He meant to protest with words, but what came out was garbled. She patted his temple and gently slid away. It was a minor consolation that Mara was still clad only in her underwear, tight as second skin and he got a terrific view of her back and her ass when she walked towards the kitchen. The view was even better when she came back, glass in hand. She met his appreciative gaze neutrally, as if she hadn't just reduced him to a mass of shaking limbs without asking for anything in return.

Mara got back on the bed and offered him the glass. He didn’t really want to, but forced himself to take it, and promptly spilled a good amount of it on himself, chill going straight to shivering cold, even after he’d used the sheet to wipe most of it away. Mara took the glass back, took a quick swig of it herself, then put it back on her nightstand. 

“Under the sheets," she ordered, having caught sight of him shivering pathetically. She slipped underneath as well and half draped herself over him. 

It was pretty much perfect until she said, “You remember, there was a point to all this right?”

He thought, something in return, then. The pretense. He made a noncommittal sound. 

“Is it like meditation?”

He wondered if he stayed very still and quiet, she'd forget. He wanted to.

"Remember? Does it make no difference?"

He waited a few more seconds.

"Just check, will you? I'm curious."

“Now?” he rasped out, bewildered. _Did_ she even recognize it as pretense? 

“You’re the only Jedi in the room.”

He sighed, but if that was what she wanted...He closed his eyes and stretched his awareness...and fell into a moving stream of energy. When he came to the room was pitch black, and Mara had shifted to her side and away from him. He reached for her, not realizing she was asleep until she spoke groggily. 

“What was that all about?” 

“I’ll tell you later.” He felt mostly recovered and pulled away gradually, thinking she would go back to sleep. He padded over to where he remembered leaving his clothes.

“Somewhere to be?” Her voice rang out.

His eyes landed on the dim light of the chrono on her desk and his eyes widened. “I was out for four hours?”

“Like a rock.”

He rubbed at his face and began putting his clothing back on, thinking he needed a shower. Which was fine, whatever that had been in the Force felt enough like a stim shot to the system that he doubted he’d be able to go to sleep anytime soon.

“Okay, well.” He heard the rustle of sheets as she changed position. “We’ll talk later.”

And he didn’t know if it was because of falling into that energy well, being more perceptive, or attuned to her, specifically, but he could feel the disappointment. He wished she would just ask him to stay, but was certain she wouldn’t.

He sat on the bed, going over his options, shirt still in hand.

“What is it?” There was definitely concern edging into her voice...and just a bit of fear.

“I don’t know if I feel right enough to get into the skimmer.”

Her tension dissipated. Luke thought she may have snorted. “That was four hours ago.”

“It was...intense.”

She had definitely snorted, and did so again. “Try refreshing techniques.” Her voice was partially muffled by the pillow. “The ones _you_ taught me.”

“Unless you don’t want me to stay.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, but he had already let go of the shirt and was sliding under the sheets. He debated for a second the space between them, but tossed caution to the wind and and spooned his body around hers. She could always shove him off if she wanted. 

“No love letters, Skywalker,” she warned, but punctuated it with a yawn. He pressed his forehead against her shoulder and thought of the warmth of her hand against his cheek, that bruising kiss, but more than anything, he thought of that half hidden smile. 

He'd take curiosity for now. He was pretty sure she wasn't going anywhere.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured.


End file.
